{"id":28462,"date":"2016-09-09T04:14:10","date_gmt":"2016-09-09T04:14:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/gabon-election-jean-ping-takes-ali-bongo-to-court\/"},"modified":"2016-09-09T04:14:08","modified_gmt":"2016-09-09T04:14:08","slug":"gabon-election-jean-ping-takes-ali-bongo-to-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/gabon-election-jean-ping-takes-ali-bongo-to-court\/","title":{"rendered":"Gabon election: Jean Ping takes Ali Bongo to court"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>{Gabon&#8217;s opposition leader has lodged a challenge to the presidential election result at the constitutional court.}<\/p>\n<p>Defeated presidential candidate Jean Ping has complained of fraud, pointing out that in one province incumbent Ali Bongo won 95% of the vote.<\/p>\n<p>Former African Union chair Mr Ping lost the election by less than 6,000 votes.<\/p>\n<p>The European Union has said there were &#8220;clear anomalies&#8221; in last month&#8217;s poll &#8211; charges denied by Mr Bongo, who in turn accused Mr Ping of fraud.<\/p>\n<p>The official election result, announced on 31 August, gave Mr Bongo a second seven-year term with 49.8% of the vote to Mr Ping&#8217;s 48.2%.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Ping criticised results in Mr Bongo&#8217;s home province of Haut-Ogooue, where turnout was 99.93% and 95% of votes were for the president.<\/p>\n<p>Turnout in the other provinces was between 45% and 71%, according to Gabon&#8217;s interior ministry.<\/p>\n<p>On Monday Gabonese Justice Minister Seraphim Moundounga resigned in protest.<br \/>\nThe EU has also questioned the legitimacy of the election results.<\/p>\n<p>But Mr Bongo retaliated, telling France&#8217;s RTL radio &#8220;some of the EU observers overstepped their mission&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>When the election results were announced people took to the street in protest.<\/p>\n<p>The Gabonese authorities say three people have died and 105 have been injured following violent clashes and more than 800 arrests.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Ping puts the death toll higher &#8211; saying dozens of his supporters have been killed and that a presidential guard helicopter bombed his headquarters.<\/p>\n<p>{{Gabon election: Bongo v Ping}}<\/p>\n<p>Mr Bongo took office in 2009 after an election marred by violence<\/p>\n<p>He succeeding his father Omar Bongo who had come to power in 1967 and was<br \/>\nAfrica&#8217;s longest serving leader<\/p>\n<p>Veteran diplomat Mr Ping had served as chair of the African Union<\/p>\n<p>He had been a close ally of Omar Bongo and had been his foreign minister<\/p>\n<p>He had two children with Omar Bongo&#8217;s daughter, Pascaline<\/p>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-14865 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/_91001163_035051501.jpg\" alt=\"After Ali Bongo&#039;s victory was announced protesters took to the streets\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>{Gabon&#8217;s opposition leader has lodged a challenge to the presidential election result at the constitutional court.} Defeated presidential candidate Jean Ping has complained of fraud, pointing out that in one province incumbent Ali Bongo won 95% of the vote. Former African Union chair Mr Ping lost the election by less than 6,000 votes. The European [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[100],"byline":[249],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-28462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics-48","tag-africa","byline-bbc"],"bylines":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"contributors":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28462"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28462\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28462"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=28462"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=28462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}